toolsmith

:toolsmith: n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one
who specializes in making the tool
with which other programmers
create applications. Many hackers consider this more fun than
applications per se; to understand why, see uninteresting
Jon
Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science" chapter of his book
"More Programming Pearls", quotes Dick Sites from DEC
as saying "I'd
rather write programs to write programs than write programs".